My 3nd Annual “Year In Music” Review: Top 20, Honorable Mentions

 

End-of-year lists help me find music I missed, or prod me to listen again, more closely, to albums I may have dismissed too quickly. I heard 127 full albums that came out in 2021. It’s a challenge to pick out the albums that were fresh, distinctive, original, best. I enjoy the process of puzzling it out for myself. What am I saying? I guess I’m a cliche.

For the third consecutive year, I continued the project in which I try to listen to at least one complete album a day. Often twice through. In 2019, I got to 778 full albums, in addition to all the other random-scattered listening I do. Last year the number was 711. In 2021, I listened to 702 complete albums, starting with “Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows” by SF Seals and concluding with “Living in the Material World” by George Harrison. For no rhyme whatsoever.

It was a pandemic year in music and many albums felt scaled back, smaller in ambition, more intimate and modest. Logistics played a role. And, also, context: people were dying; the world in general felt more introspective. For whatever reason, I don’t think this was a year when many truly “great” albums came out. 

Jimmy Fun Fact: When I got my iPod in April, 2008, I started making a 30-song monthly playlist. Part of that was a response to having nearly everything available instantaneously. Each month, I created a little home base full of new music as well as old reminders. I have now kept that up, switching to Spotify in 2017, for 165 straight months. Maybe that tells you something scary about me? As always, I don’t pretend that my taste is any better than anyone else’s.

 

TOP 20

Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders: Promises

Julien Baker: Little Oblivians 

Helado Negro: Far In 

         

Black Country, New Road: For the first time 

Mdou Moctar: Afrique Victime

Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert: The Marfa Tapes

       

Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorry, Linda Oh: Uneasy

Cassandra Jenkins: An Overview of … Nature

Madlib: Sound Ancestors

Katy Kirby: Cool Dry Place

       

Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg @ 2021

Yes/and: s/t

Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince 

       

Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams

Hayes Carll: You Get It All

Indigo De Souza: Any Shape You Take

Bonnie Prince Billy, Matt Sweeney: Super-wolves

       

Sons of Kemet: Black to the Future 

Michael Hurley: The Time of the Foxgloves

Myriam Gendron: Songs of Love, Lost & Found

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS (35)

Note: Ditching categories here because they give me such trouble. In alphabetical order . . . 

  

Rodrigo Amarante: Drama 

Amyl and the Sniffers: Comfort to Me

Marisa Anderson/William Tyler: Lost Futures

Bachelor: Doomin’ Sun

Courtney Barnett: Things Take Time, Take Time

Adrian Crowley: Watchful Eyes of the Stars

Lana Del Rey: Chemtrails Over the Country Club

Dinosaur Jr.: Sweep It Into Space

Felice Brothers: From Dreams to Dust

Les Filles de Illighadad: At Pioneer Work 

Flock of Dimes: Head of Roses

Hand Habits: Fun House

Illuminati Hotties: Let Me Do One More

Pokey LaFarge: In the Blossom of Their Shade

Langhorne Slim: Strawberry Mansion

Little Simz: Sometimes I Might Be an Introvert

Lorde: Solar Power

Low: Hey What

L’Rain: Fatigue

Midwife: Luminol 

Mountain Goats: Dark In Here

Navy Blue: Navy’s Reprise

Robert Plant, Alison Krauss: Raise the Roof

Gavin Preller: There Is Wonder

Allison Russell: Outside Child

Sturgill Simpson: Ballad of Dood & Juanita

Sonny & The Sunsets: New Day New Possibilities

Jazmine Sullivan: Heaux Tales

Tyler the Creator: Call Me If You

Adia Victoria: A Southern Gothic

Villagers: Fever Dreams

Nick Waterhouse: Promenade Blue

Yasmin Williams: Urban Driftwood

Faye Webster: I Know I’m Funny haha

Wolf Alice: Blue Weekend

 

EXTRA SPECIAL MENTION . . . 

Steve Earle: JT (covers album)

A beautiful tribute to his son, Justin Townes Earle, who died from a drug overdose. The last song, the only original, “Last Words,” slays me every time.

 

ABOUT MY “NOT NEW” INTERESTS 

Because I’ve now got this large file on my desktop, and I’m insane, I noted the not-necessarily-new artists I listened to most widely (by the arbitrary measure of at least 5 different full albums over the past three years). This list also reflects little jags I went on, where I’d get inspired and go deep on, say, Warren Zevon or Rickie Lee Jones, for extended periods. 

 

5X: Don Cherry * Bill Evans * Ahmad Jamal * Laura Cannell * Grouper *William Tyler * The Byrds * Hot Tuna * Bruce Springsteen * Steely Dan * Tom Waits * The Who * Bruce Cockburn * Joe Henry * Paul Simon * Jeff Tweedy * Courtney Barnett * Beach House * Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst/Better Oblivion Community * Death Cab for Cutie * Decemberists * Giant Sand * Robyn Hitchcock * Microphones/Mount Eerie * Silver Jews * Sufjan Stevens * Sun Kil Moon * Teenage Fanclub *Hayes Carll * Jason Isbell *Laura Marling/Lump * Alasdair Roberts * 6X: John Coltrane * Charles Mingus * Nick Lowe * Lou Reed * R.E.M. * Leonard Cohen * Joni Mitchell * Alex G * Yo La Tengo * Jayhawks * Lucinda Williams * Sam Amidon * 7X: Thelonious Monk  * Brian Eno * Frank Zappa * Rickie Lee Jones * Ryan Adams * Lambchop * Drive-By Truckers * Magnolia Electric Company/Songs:Ohia * 8X: Beatles * David Bowie * Kinks * Van Morrison * Bonnie Prince Billy/Palace Music * Mountain Goats * Steve Earle * Willie Nelson * 9X: Warren Zevon * Elliott Smith/Heatmiser * Kanye West * 10X-plus: Grateful Dead * John Prine * Wilco * Miles Davis * Rolling Stones * Neil Young * Bill Callahan/Smog * Bob Dylan.

Yes, I listened to 49 different Dylan albums over the past three years, often more than once.

CONCLUSION: It’s an impossible task, a fool’s errand, keeping track of things. It’s Schrodinger’s cat. Altered simply by being observed. I think I’ve gotten better at that, not thinking about the document as much as the moment. Screw it, I want to hear The Steve Miller Band right now and I don’t care what that does to the list. Nobody cares what I like or dislike, whether I have “good taste” or bad. The best part is the music itself, and the artists who put it out into our world. Always grateful for that.

 

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